2 MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 13. 



On August 10, we returned to Perc6 and finished the re- 

 mainder of our work, leaving for Ottawa August 23. 



DESCRIPTION AND LIFE HISTORY NOTES 

 OF THE DOUBLE -CRESTED CORMORANT. 



The Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) 

 belongs to the Steganopodes or Long-winged swimmers, an 

 order characterized by having three fully developed webs to 

 the foot. They are thus easily separated from other orders of 

 swimming birds, the ducks, gulls, loons, etc., which are furnished 

 with only two such webs, the space between the outer and the 

 hind toes being vacant or with partial webs only as in the grebes. 



This order of three-web footed birds is composed of five 

 families three of which are represented in Canada by the Gannet 

 or Solan Goose, the Cormorants, and the Pelicans. The cor- 

 morants can be easily distinguished from the others by their 

 long, powerful bill terminating in a distinctly hawk-like hooked 

 knob. The bill of the gannet comes to a clean sharp point, while 

 that of the pelican is much flattened and furnished with an 

 enormous throat or gullar pouch. 



In eastern Canada we have two cormorants: the Double- 

 crested (Phalacrocorax auritus}; and the Common Comorant, 

 identical with the Shag of Europe and England (Phalacrocorax 

 carbo). Of these, the latter is slightly the larger and in adult 

 plumage can be separated from the former by the occurrence 

 of a white patch on the flanks and a border of the same colour 

 along the edge of the small throat pouch. The adult Double- 

 crested Cormorant, in the highest plumage, has a crest, on either 

 side of the crown, of fine filamentous feathers, which is absent 

 on the Common Cormorant. This crest, from which it derives 

 its vernacular name, however, is not always present. It seems 

 that some birds never attain it and others wear it for so 

 short a time in the early breeding season that its value as a 

 diagnostic mark is much reduced. 



It is probably due to this frequent absence of a crest, that 

 the cormorant inhabiting the Gaspe coast has heretofore been 



